


just because i'm losing doesn't mean i've lost

by shinelikestars



Category: It Lives in the Woods (Visual Novel)
Genre: Angst and Feels, Canon Era, Emotional Baggage, Gen, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-12
Updated: 2018-10-12
Packaged: 2019-07-29 19:05:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16270460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinelikestars/pseuds/shinelikestars
Summary: andy and noah are the only ones left. everyone else? they're gone. they died in that cave. the only girl andy's ever loved took jane's place. now, all he's got is a screwy leg and a grief he can't shake. so what in the hell is he supposed to do?(AKA the one with the Bad Ending where MC takes Jane's place, Noah and Andy survive, and that's about it)





	just because i'm losing doesn't mean i've lost

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from "Lost!" by Coldplay
> 
> i don't ever name MC in this, i just refer to her as "her", so feel free to imagine her as your MC, or whatever you like.
> 
> with It Lives Beneath being released, ILITW has been haunting me lately, so i figured i'd write a little something about it. hope you enjoy!!
> 
> fair warning: might diverge from canon a little bit because it's been so long since i've played the game/there were a few different choices i wanted to make for andy and noah.
> 
> xo,  
> L

When he first wakes up, Andy registers the world around him through a haze of painkillers.

 

It takes him a second to figure out where he is, but the information comes to him in bits and pieces, and soon enough, he’s able to put it all together. Everything around him is painted in shades of white and gray, the scent of antiseptic is stinging his nostrils, and there’s machines beeping all around him – he’s in the hospital. His friends aren’t there, and neither are his parents, so he either hasn’t been here long or he’s been here long enough that they went out to grab food while he slept. There’s a dull throbbing in his left leg, which tells him that whatever drug cocktail they’ve put him on must be wearing off, although he’s still groggy and a little confused from it.

 

The last thing he remembers is homecoming, hearing his name announced, walking up to the stage, Jocelyn placing the crown on his head – and then the darkness had come. Cora, and all the blood, the vine creatures, and, _oh god_ , the sound of his own bone snapping…

 

 He manages to fight back the urge to vomit just as the door to the room opens. “Andy?” he hears his mom say, and his eyes well up with sudden tears that he can’t quite explain as she rushes to his side, kneeling by the bed and stroking his hair the way she would when he got sick as a kid.

 

“Mom? What happened?” he croaks out. He can feel his hands shaking, can feel how his cheeks are wet and how his heart is racing like he’s just finished the fourth quarter of a game, and he hates it. Something in his gut is telling him that something, _something_ that he can’t quite put a finger on, is wrong. He’s not sure if he wants to find out, but Andy’s not stupid. He knows he’s about to, whether he wants to or not.

 

“Oh, sweetie,” she murmurs, taking one of his hand in hers and squeezing gently. “You just woke up, I think I should let you rest a little first—”

 

“ _Tell_ me,” he demands, feeling guilty at the way his mom flinches as his voice rises. He softens his tone. “Please, Mom. I have to know. I won’t feel better until I do.”

 

There’s a sadness in his mother’s eyes as she regards him with a look he can’t understand and lets out the shakiest of breaths. “Well, honey – no one really knows what happened –”

 

“ _Mom_ —”

 

“I know, I know.” She pats the back of his hand, and Andy swears he can see her steeling herself for what’s about to come. It makes the anticipation all the worse. “I got a call around 10 last night. It was from the school – they said there had been an incident of some sort at your homecoming dance, that an old woman had been attacked and had showed up at the dance, said something to you and your friends and promptly died on the spot. Then they told me wild animals had showed up and set on you guys like nothing anyone had ever seen before – that’s how they think you broke your leg – and I swear on my life, Andy, I drove there as fast as I could – But –”

 

Her voice is thick with tears, and they’re both fighting to maintain some shred of their composure by now. Andy’s vision is already getting blurry again as he watches his mom pause before continuing her story. “But when I got there, you were gone. Your friends weren’t there either, and the principal had no idea where you’d disappeared to. An hour later, I get another call. This one from the police.” She sniffles loudly. Andy feels like he might pass out.

 

“They found you outside of that cave, below those ruins in the woods… You and Noah Marshall. Someone had called the police, they haven’t figured out who yet. You were conscious when they got to you, but you passed out before the ambulance showed up.” Another squeeze at his hand. “You’ve been asleep since then. The doctor said that you probably just needed to rest from the shock, that you’d likely wake up today. Looks like she was right.” His mother’s small smile is a dead giveaway that she’s not telling him everything. It’s not what her real smile looks like.

 

“And what about my other friends? Stacy? Ava, Lucas, Dan, Lily—” He can’t bring himself to speak that final name, the one that’s been haunting the back of his mind since he started to put 2 and 2 together.

 

His mother won’t meet his eyes, and Andy realizes what’s coming before she even says it. “Oh, _god_ , _no_ —” he chokes out.

 

“I’m so sorry, sweetie,” she whispers. “They didn’t make it.”

 

The sobs wrack him harder than he’d thought they could. His entire body shudders with them, his leg screaming at him for it but Andy not caring as he lets the grief wash over him, lets it _consume_ him to the point where he can barely breathe through the tears. He’s vaguely aware of his mother pressing the “Call Nurse” button next to his bed, but he doesn’t care, _can’t_ care about anything else because _how could he_ , they’re gone, _she’s_ gone, seventy percent of the only people he’s ever really cared about are gone and _nothing matters anymore_ —

 

Something cool floods his veins, and the last thing he hears are his mother’s cries. Then, for the second time in 24 hours, everything fades to black.

 

•••••

They perform surgery on him the next day, courtesy of the compound fracture. He’s out of the hospital three days later; being home is somehow worse.

 

He’s in a cast that’s almost heavier than he is, and he’s stuck in this goddamn house. He’s equally bored as he is depressed, with school canceled for the foreseeable future, and nobody will tell him anything. His parents won’t say shit to him. The only thing his mom _has_ told him is that Noah has been put in the psych ward. No visitors. Andy wants to feel bad for him, but there’s a part of him that tells him he shouldn’t, something in him that recoils of the thought of having sympathy for Noah.

 

It freaks him out.

 

Tom texts him three days into his forced convalescence. _Hey man. Sorry it took me this long to get to you. I’ve been recovering too. Can I come over later?_

 

Andy’s mom, thank god, underestimates what a bad influence Tom might be and tells Andy he can come over. Andy waits until she’s left to go grocery-shopping to send his reply. _Hell yeah. But if it’s okay with you, I kind of need a small favor…_

 

The thing about Tom is that he’s _really_ good at things a small-town kid probably shouldn’t be good at – fixing boats, hacking computers, and, oh yeah, picking locks. The second of those three makes getting what Andy needs really easy.

 

See, he wants his friends’ autopsy reports. His parents won’t tell him how they died, and the newspaper hasn’t said shit about it, nor has anything he’s been able to find on Google, so the official records are his best bet. It’s a good thing that Westchester’s officials are pretty shitty at securing their digital data.

 

Tom brings the reports and a case of Thomas Kemper root beer over at 2. His mom’s still not back yet, so Andy goes for the reports first, only stopping to give Tom the best hug he can give with half of his strength still sapped out of him. Everything threatens to make him cry these days, so he tries not to let Tom see his face as he sorts through the papers.

 

Pretty quickly, he gets why his mom didn’t want him to see them. It’s fucking horrifying. Lucas got his chest ripped in half. Dan suffocated – coroner still hasn’t been able to figure out how that happened. Lily was pecked to death, throat a bloody mess, mouth still open in a scream when the county received her body. Stacy died of a broken neck, Ava of a cracked skull and too many crushed ribs to count.

 

The final body, _her_ body, hasn’t been found. According to Tom, rumor has it that she’d wandered off to commit suicide somewhere, and the dogs just haven’t found her yet. That she hid too well.

 

She always did win hide-and-seek. Jane used to get mad at her for it. Andy remembers.

 

He wishes he could remember more.

 

He shoves the reports back into Tom’s old crinkled Algebra folder with trembling hands and tries to breathe. His chest is tight, and he can feel the panic attack just waiting to happen. He used to get those in middle school, and apparently, they’re back with a vengeance. He’d gotten one on his second day in the hospital, when the doctor told him he couldn’t wear his binder until he was discharged, and now they’re a daily occurrence.

 

(His mom wants him to consider anti-anxiety meds. Andy doesn’t want to give people another reason to call him crazy. The past three weeks, the past _ten years_ , have had enough of that. He can’t deal with any more than is already bound to come.)

 

Tom looks at him like he might break at any given second, but Andy sees the cracks in him, too. He gets flashes of something, of him in a tux and Tom staring at him with dead eyes and a blank face, but when he tugs at the memory, it won’t quite give way.

 

“When do you think they’ll re-open the school?” Tom says, startling him out of his temporary space-out. Andy’s grateful for the attempt to distract him, even if it doesn’t necessarily work.

 

“I dunno.” A bolt of pain shoots through his leg as he shifts in his seat, and he can’t help the wince that escapes. “Sorry, that happens sometimes. Anyway, they’ll probably start classes again in a week or two, however long it takes for the police to get everything they need from the gym and for someone to come in and clean up.”

 

“I’m sure we’ll have an assembly or something, you know how Principal Flores likes to showboat--” Tom stops himself short. “Fuck, Andy. I’m sorry.”

 

 He has to pretend it doesn’t hurt to think about it, how his friends’ names and pictures will get put into a fucking slideshow and projected for the whole school to fake-cry over, how from now on, he’ll only get to see their smiles in the same sort of photographs. “I mean, you’re not wrong,” he says, trying to cover the wobble in his voice with a harsh laugh. It doesn’t really work – Tom knows him too well.

 

Tom shakes his head. “Doesn’t matter. Y’know, it’s easier when we can disconnect, treat it like people we didn’t know our whole fucking lives just got murdered, but—” Andy is surprised to hear his voice crack—“we all know it’s just a sham. Who are we kidding? This town was never normal before this, but now it’ll never be anything but fucked-up. There’s something dark here. We’re stupid to pretend it doesn’t exist.”

 

All he can muster up the courage to respond with is, “Yeah.”

 

They don’t talk about the deaths anymore after that. His mom returns home with the groceries soon after, and they pull out Andy’s old Wii and play Mario Kart until their eyes hurt from staring at the bright screens. They drink lukewarm sodas and pretend it’s like the old times, like the summer that ended just a few short weeks ago, when death was a thing Andy had never considered happening to anyone in his life except himself and he didn’t need titanium screws to hold his tibia in place.

 

But it’s not the old times, and secretly, Andy knows he’ll never find that kind of happiness again.

 

He left that happiness behind in the cave.

 

•••••

The doctors tell him he’ll never play basketball the same again.

 

Andy tells them to fuck themselves.

 

The doctors tell him he’ll need a second surgery on his leg, and intensive physical therapy after that.

 

Andy lets them win that time.

 

He ends up missing so much school that he has to take a medical leave of absence. To her credit, Principal Flores looks nothing but defeated when she informs Andy and his mom of the school’s policy on it. When she thinks Andy isn’t listening, she tells his mom, “Mrs. Kang, I’ve lost enough students this year already. Trust me, I’m not interested in losing any more.”

 

She quits at the end of the year. Tom says the administration won’t tell the students why, but Andy’s mom gets an email from her a week later saying that she and her wife have finally moved to Arizona, as they should have a long, long time ago.

 

Truth be told, Andy’s grateful for the absence. It’s not like he enjoys having to repeat his senior year of high school, being left behind in Westchester while the rest of his peers go off to college next year (though the only ones that truly mattered won’t _ever_ leave), but physical therapy is enough of a battle on its own without the added stresses of homework and exams. He falls on his ass in front of the pretty physical therapist assistant too many times to count, and oftentimes he leaves so frustrated that he feels like he’ll never walk normally again. It’s only marginally better when Tom sometimes tags along for support – it’s nice to have his friend there cheering him on, but it only makes face-planting doubly embarrassing.

 

(He doesn’t want Tom to know that he’ll never be the Andy Kang he used to be, the Andy Kang that Tom decided to be friends with. He doesn’t want Tom to see him fail, over and over again, because if he does, then Tom might not want to stick around – and who will he have then? A bunch of tombstones in Westchester Cemetery?)

 

Andy knows that technically, he’s alive and well (or as well as the tangled mess of scars on his left knee will let him be), but he can’t escape the feeling that he died that night with the rest of them. It’s like he left a part of himself in that cave, a part of himself that he can’t ever get back, and the person he is now is so unfamiliar that it sometimes scares him. He was impulsive and hot-headed before, true, but he never used to get this angry. He never used to want to give up so quickly. He never used to lash out at people who just wanted to help him.

 

The reflection staring back at him in the mirror resembles the Andy Kang of six months ago, but it’s obvious that the old Andy isn’t there. The old Andy didn’t have that haunted look in his eyes; the old Andy didn’t carry a little bit of death with him wherever he went.

 

But this Andy does. And he doesn’t know what to do with that.

 

•••••

The memories come back to him in a dream. A nightmare, actually.

 

He feels the spiders crawling up his arms before he sees them. He hears Ava’s bones cracking even before Jane throws her against the wall, and Lily’s screams ring in his ears long after the breath has left her body. He looks down at his tux, where Lucas’s blood has spattered the front of his shirt, and knows that he’ll never be able to get the stains out, even with a million tubs of Clorox.

 

He watches the only girl he’s ever loved disappear into darkness and wakes up screaming.

 

His parents rush into his room like he’s five years old and suffering from night terrors again, flicking the lights on and enveloping him in their arms so tightly that it’s almost suffocating. “What happened, Andy?” his dad asks, pulling back from the hug to get a better look at him.

 

“Just a bad dream,” he says, voice hoarse, reaching for the glass of water his mom has magically procured. “Well—” He hesitates, the urge to tell the truth tugging at him, the desire so strong it threatens to pull him underwater completely. _C’mon, Andy. Your parents love you, you should be able to tell them anything. And won’t it feel so much better to get it all out, now that you know what really happened? Don’t her parents deserve to know the truth?_

 

So he confesses. “I remember what happened that night,” he admits, and his mother’s eyes immediately widen to the size of dinner plates. “There was this _thing_ – this, like, dark energy, and that’s what had been terrorizing the town for weeks. We called it Mr. Redfield. It controlled those animals that attacked homecoming, and it took me to the cave to get my friends to come. It made us play a game—” He inhales shakily, sensing that his composure is threatening to crack— “and when my friends got too scared, it killed them—”

 

His dad cuts him off, brisk and quick to the point as usual. “I don’t understand. You’re going too fast.”

 

“Why don’t we get you some tea, sweetie, and then we can all sit down so you can explain in more detail?” his mom suggests.

 

It feels like the weight of the world has been lifted off his chest. _They believe me. They believe me, they don’t think I’m crazy, I’m finally going to get the truth out so the world can know that she didn’t murder our friends, so the world can know that she was_ good _, and she didn’t deserve to die, none of them did—_

 

So his mom makes him a pot of oolong tea, and they sit down and talk for hours, Andy taking it from the very start to give his parents all the context they could ever want. The sun has just started to rise when he finishes the story and his tea. His parents tuck him into bed with a kiss and a promise that things will be better now, and though it makes him feel like a little kid again, Andy drifts off to sleep with the thought that maybe, just maybe, he won’t have to do this alone anymore.

 

His illusion of relief doesn’t last long. His mom wakes him up that afternoon with another cup of tea and an appointment card for a therapist in Pine Springs.

 

They don’t believe him. They think he’s crazy, that the stress of his injury and the grief from losing his friends has caused him to have a mental break.

 

Andy starts to wonder if this is karma.

 

Maybe he deserves to be alone.

 

•••••

He doesn’t want to end up like Noah, stuck in a psych ward without a single sane soul to keep him company. So he does what’s expected of him and tells his therapist that the “fantasy” of Mr. Redfield is really just an elaborate coping mechanism, that he recognizes it’s just his brain trying to rationalize the brutal murders of his friends at the hand of someone he deeply cared for.

 

It works. Andy is, apparently, a better liar than he’d thought.

 

Lying to Dr. Chambal doesn’t take the pain away, though. There’s only so much he can tell her, of course, seeing as the entire county thinks the person whose loss he grieves the most is the one who killed the rest of his friends. She wants him to process it in a different way, as reconciling the darker side of someone he’d trusted with the side of her that he knew, and that’s not going to work for Andy. Because that’s not what really happened – and he’s the only one who gets that.

 

Usually, he can deal with it okay. He distracts himself with leg exercises and late-night NBA games and plenty of Mario Kart sessions with Tom. But there are days, too many in his opinion, where that’s not enough, and no matter how hard he tries to push them down, the emotions always claw their way out.

 

It’s a rainy day in March when his mom sees the emotions win over for the first time.

 

The simplest of things sets him off. His dad asks him to go to the garage to grab a wrench; the pipe under the sink is messed up. Andy’s reaching for the tool when a flash of orange catches his eye. A basketball.

 

He grabs both the wrench and the ball and steps back, examining what he’s found.

 

It doesn’t take him long to realize it’s his favorite childhood basketball, the one he used to bring over to Stacy’s house until Mayor Green banned it, fearing he’d ruin the furniture. The ball is deflated and dusty, but all Andy has to do is hold it to remember how happy it had made him, once upon a time.

 

It takes him even less time to recognize why his mom might have shoved it away, because before he knows it, he’s fighting back sobs, the urge to sink to his knees and just lose his shit entirely overwhelming.

 

He doesn’t even hear the door to the garage open; he only registers that his mom has entered the room when he feels her hand on his back and breathes in the comforting scent of her favorite lavender perfume.

 

“I lost everything, Mom,” he whispers, staring at the basketball in his hands. “I lost my friends, I lost basketball, I lost the girl I loved—” His mom sucks in a breath at that, and with a jolt, Andy realizes he’s never told her that before. Tom’s the only one who knew he was in love.

 

“Oh, honey.” He turns to face his mother; her eyes are shining with unshed tears, and guilt twinges in his chest. “I didn’t know—”

 

“’S’okay,” he mutters, scuffing the toe of his shoe against the floor. “I didn’t exactly tell you.” He can’t help the bitter laugh that escapes at his next words. “She’d be mad at me for that, I guess – she was always kind of a romantic. Not like I’m winning any ‘Boyfriend of the Year’ awards, anyway. If it weren’t for me, she’d still be here.”

 

“ _Andy_ ,” his mom gasps. “You know that’s not true, sweetheart. There was nothing you could have done. You could barely walk—”

 

“No, Mom, I could have _stopped her_ , I could have told her not to do it,” he insists. “I could have told her there was another way, I could have done it instead, I could have done something, _anything_ —”

 

The façade finally cracks, and the grief wins out. Andy stumbles into his mother’s arms, crying into her cardigan as she wraps him in a hug, stroking at his hair like he’s half-dead and back in the hospital again. “Shh, love, _gwenchana_. I’ve got you now, everything will be alright,” she murmurs. “I’m here.”

 

She holds him until his tears are dry and his sobs have faded, and then she tells him why it’ll be okay. She tells him that it’s not his fault, that the one he loved wouldn’t want him to put the blame on himself, that the decision she’d made was one only she could make, that there was nothing he could have done. She comforts him in a way Andy hasn’t seen in years, and when they leave the garage to give the wrench to his father, she kisses the top of his head like she did after he’d told her he was trans.

 

She cares -- Andy has always known that. But what he hadn’t known before is that she _understood_ , in some way. She believes that he’s a good person, that he’d done all he could that terrible night.

 

He’s kind of starting to believe it, too. And god, does it feel good.

 

•••••

Noah gets out of the psych ward a week later, having successfully convinced his doctors of his sanity. Tom texts him the news, but Andy has already sensed it in the worried once-overs his mom kept giving him at breakfast that morning.

 

He gets the messages a couple hours later. _hey I don’t know if you’ve blocked me now or something but we need to talk. is there somewhere we can meet_

 

_there’s so much I need to explain to you. please, man, don’t shut me out._

_I guess I get it. I let Jane hurt them. It’s all my fault. I’m so sorry Andy_

 

It’s all such fucking _bullshit_. Noah’s right – it _is_ his fault. He’s the one who told Jane they could save her if they all just played the game. He’s the one who just sat by and watched as his sister killed everyone they’d ever cared about. _He’s_ the one who got to go escape it all in a mental hospital for six months while everyone else had to try and make something out of the broken pieces he’d left behind.

 

Noah won’t walk with a permanent limp. Noah didn’t lose six out of seven of the only people who really understood him. Noah doesn’t have mountains of surgery bills his family can’t afford to pay. Noah doesn’t have titanium screws in his leg. Noah doesn’t know what it’s like, and Noah doesn’t deserve his goddamn sympathy.

 

Andy won’t spend a second of his life without some sort of pain, be it in his leg or in his mind. He’d been happy, _truly_ happy for the first time in his life, and Noah had taken it all away in the span of minutes.

 

Fuck him.

 

Andy leaves his texts on read, and eventually, they stop coming.

 •••••

It’s late April when he gets his first positive prognosis from the doctor. “Keep it up, Andy,” he tells him on the way out, “and you’ll be back on the varsity team come September.”

 

Tom takes him out to lunch to celebrate. They eat at Andy’s favorite kimchi place – well, _the_ only kimchi place in Westchester – and Tom catches him up on the latest school gossip. Ben’s girlfriend apparently broke up with him for being an ass, which had prompted him to publicly announce to the entire school that he was “working on himself”; Jocelyn has somehow become president of the Key Club; Mr. Cooper has announced his imminent retirement to Honolulu. It might be idle chitchat, but Andy can’t deny that it’s nice to talk about something other than his leg and his PTSD for once.

 

Then Tom hits him with a bombshell. “So,” he says, taking a long sip of his root beer, “rumor has it that the police are gonna issue a warrant for Noah’s arrest.”

 

Andy’s heart immediately falls into his stomach. “Uh, wow. What are they trying to arrest him for?”

 

Tom raises a brow. “Sure you’re okay to hear about this?”

 

“Yeah, man, I’m fine,” he says hastily, temporarily abandoning his kimchi. “Just tell me.”

 

Tom sighs. “This feels like a bad idea, but okay. Apparently, someone tipped them off that there might be evidence at Noah’s house, so they got a search warrant – doesn’t sound like much of a basis to do so to me, but you know how shady Westchester politics is. Anyway, I heard they found a journal in his room, where he’d been plotting how to get his dead sister back and shit. Talking about how everyone had to ‘play the game’. Makes them think he either staged the murder-suicide or was in on it with—”

 

A wave of nausea hits him like a punch to the gut. “That’s enough,” he interrupts shakily, appetite completely gone. It must be written all over his face, how terrible he feels, because Tom looks incredibly guilty.  

 

“I’m sorry, I swear I wasn’t trying to upset you – I just thought you might want to know, since people are thinking he might go on the run – ”

 

“I’m fine, Tom, really, it’s fine,” Andy tells him. It’s not really a lie; it’s more like a half-truth. “Let’s just get out of here, alright?”

 

“Sure. Lemme just go pay the bill.”

 

And as Tom leaves, Andy knows what he needs to do.

 •••••

“You couldn’t have picked a less cliché place to meet? Like, maybe somewhere that’s not the first place the cops will go when they figure out I’m missing?”

 

Andy stares across the grimy diner table at the boy who has made the past seven months a living hell, and for the life of him, he can’t think of a good come-back. “You don’t get to say shit like that. Not after what you did.”

 

Noah sobers up pretty quickly at that, hiding his initial reaction in his cup of coffee. “Yeah. You’re probably right about that, huh?” He takes a sip, nose wrinkling at the evidently-unpleasant taste, then sets down his mug with a sigh. “Alright. I don’t have much time, so let’s cut to the chase. You ignored me for weeks – why call me to meet you here now?”

 

“Because I knew you’d be leaving,” Andy replies honestly, “and there’s a lot I need to tell you before you do that.”

 

Noah arches a brow and leans back in his seat, arms crossed over his head like he hasn’t got a fucking care in the world, like there’s not about to be a $50,000 price tag on his head, and for a second, it brings Andy way back. It reminds him of previous conversations over cheap coffee and greasy fries, back when he thought Noah was fighting for all of their lives and not just his sister’s, when they weren’t the only ones sitting around the table. It takes him a second to remember that things will never be like that again, and they sure as hell aren’t like that now.

 

“You almost took away everything good I had in my life,” Andy says, unable to stop his hands from balling into fists at his sides. “Hell, you _did_ take away most of it. I lost so many people because of you, I will never walk normally again because of you, and all for what? For a fucking ghost?” He shakes his head. “I don’t get it, Noah. Lucas might have had all the book smarts, but you always had the most common sense out of any of us. I don’t buy your horse-shit ‘saving Jane’ excuse for a second. So why’d you do it? Why’d you betray us like that? _How_ could you betray us like that?”

 

Andy can’t tell if it’s anger, fear, or sadness burning in Noah’s eyes (or maybe even all three) as the other boy leans in closer, shortening the distance between them. “You really wanna know the truth, Andy?”

 

“C’mon, Noah,” he growls, “you _know_ I do. I won’t leave until I get it. I’ll watch your sorry ass rot in jail if I don’t.”

 

Noah smirks, and it makes Andy see red. “Gotta say, I always knew you had a short temper, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this angry, Kang. It’s a good look on you.”

 

“You have ten seconds before I walk away and call the cops.”

 

Noah inhales sharply. “Okay, fine. You want the truth? Here it is. I didn’t really care if Jane moved on to Heaven, or Hell, or whatever. I just wanted her gone.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

He shrugs. “We were close growing up, yeah, but I was always second-best in my parents’ eyes. I could never do anything right, but my sister, she was God’s gift to the earth, of course, and I was just the fuck-up. I was always living in her shadow. Even after she died, I could never get away from Jane. No matter how hard I tried. She just… _haunted_ me like the ghost she turned out to be.”

 

“Your emotional problems don’t warrant all of our friends dying,” Andy hisses.

 

Noah doesn’t seem angry at the outburst; he just looks exhausted. “I know it doesn’t mean anything to you, but trust me, Andy, until you’re living in it, you’ll never get what I went through. Mom always blamed me for her death, told me she wished I’d died instead. Dad left because we reminded him too much of her. And God knows this whole town did their goddamn best to make sure I never forgot about my poor little dead sister. So when I saw a way to set her free, to let both of us rest in peace… I took the opportunity.”

 

He pauses, lifting his gaze so their eyes meet, and this time, Andy can’t find anything but sincerity in him. “But I swear to you, on my _life_ , if I had known how many people I’d hurt in the process, that someone would sacrifice their life for Jane’s – I never would’ve done it.”

 

Andy wishes he could hit him, scream at him, hurt Noah in one tenth of the way that he’s hurt him. He wishes he had the capability to do any or all of those things. But looking at Noah’s face, hearing the pain in his voice and knowing that every word he says is nothing but the truth, he can’t bring himself to do it.

 

“I don’t know that I’ll ever forgive you,” he says evenly, surprising himself with the calmness in his tone. “And God knows I’ll never forget. But I think a part of me, maybe, sort of understands.”

 

Noah visibly relaxes, and Andy almost smiles, because something about it is painfully familiar. He can’t decide how that makes him feel.

 

“I’m glad,” Noah finally says. “I just wish I could go back and un-do it all, have me take Jane’s place instead—” He chokes on a sob, and seven months ago, Andy would have reached across the booth to comfort him, but he can’t do it. Not just yet. Things are still too raw.

 

“There’s nothing we can do now,” Andy tells him.

 

Noah laughs bitterly. “So what, we’re all fucked? Tell me something I don’t know.”  

 

“We just have to move on,” he says. “Find a fresh start. Maybe get away from it all.”

 

The one thing that Jane hasn’t taken away from is their silent understanding of each other, and Andy can tell by the hitch in Noah’s breath that he gets what he’s trying to say. “You mean—”

 

“She told me about ‘Baby Jane’s’, you know. I’ve heard the restaurant business in North Dakota could use a boost.”

 

Noah pales. “Andy, _what_? You’re just gonna let me leave?”

 

He considers his next words carefully. “Look, Noah. You’re messed up. We all are, now. I think I’ve figured out that Westchester just does that to people. You got a second chance when Jane’s place was taken for you, so take advantage of it. Get out of here before Westchester makes sure you stay, or I’ll know for sure I can never forgive you.”

 

Noah wipes at his face with his jacket sleeve, and in that split second, Andy swears he catches a glimpse of a tear. “Thank you—”

 

“Don’t thank me yet. You’ll still be alone,” he says simply. “That’s punishment enough.”

 

Noah hesitates, then nods. “I guess I’d better get going, then.”

 

Andy shrugs. “How should I know? As far as I’m concerned, I was never here.”

 

The last thing he sees of Noah Marshall is the back of his denim jacket as he heads out the diner door.

 

Then, his figure disappears into the blinding morning sunlight.

 

•••••

When Andy visits his friends’ graves for the first time, Noah Marshall has officially been missing for two months. There’s a $100,000 reward being offered for his return. People say that Westchester probably doesn’t have the money for that kind of bounty, but Andy doesn’t doubt that it’ll never need to be doled out.

 

 He goes to Stacy’s grave first. He tells her about her mom’s re-election, how she won by a landslide, but Connor didn’t show up to the victory party. He tells her that Britney has given up her captain position on the squad, and Coach Karr is struggling to find a girl to fill the spot. He leaves a sunflower with her.

 

He heads to Ava’s grave next. He fills her in on the latest Avengers movie, the guilty pleasure she’d only ever told him about (they’d both agreed that Bucky was the best character). He talks about the new metaphysical supply store that’s just opened up in Anderton, and how all the soccer moms are throwing a fit over it being “Wiccan”. He leaves her a bottle of sage.

 

At Dan’s grave, he discusses the Super Bowl and the newest prospects for the Westchester football team; his parting gift is a battered old football the new quarterback had given him. He talks to Lily about the latest in video game releases and the new café on Main Street, and he leaves a copy of _Portal_ by her headstone. Lucas gets to hear all about where the members of their senior class are going to college, and Andy confesses to him that he’ll be repeating senior year. He gives him a copy of _The Odyssey_ , Lucas’s favorite part of their junior-year Lit class.

 

It’s her grave that he stops by last. He doesn’t have anything to give her; all he has is his words, which he hopes are enough, hopes she can hear somehow.

 

“It’s been hard without you. You did the right thing – of course you did, you always have – but it’s so fucking hard. I miss you every day. It feels unfair that you got taken away right when I realized I loved you—” He has to force himself to stop and take a breath, the pain in his leg flaring up at the way he’s kneeling on the ground, the pain in his chest equally sharp.

 

“But my mom tells me that there’s no such thing as ‘fair’ in life, and I think I’m starting to believe her.” He lets himself smile, just a little. “I’m doing okay. Coach says he wants me to be captain in the fall, and I think I might take him up on his offer. Alright, who am I kidding – I’m definitely gonna take him up on his offer. And my leg’s coming along great. So, as I guess you would say, it might be hard, but it’s not impossible.” There’s tears beading in the corners of his eyes, but Andy lets them fall. “Just wish you were here to see it. I love you, beautiful. See you on the other side, some day.”

 

And as he walks back to his car, he knows it’s dark out, he knows it’s probably his mind playing tricks on him, but he swears, he _swears_ –

 

Well, it’s almost like he feels her with him.


End file.
